Learning to Let Go Of Your To-Do List

When I started my simplicity coaching business five years ago, one of my first speaking gigs involved talking to Girl Scouts about home organization. I developed a presentation called “How to Be An Organized Kid,” where I taught the two steps of being organized:

Step 1 – Minimize!

Step 2 – Organize!

I remember those cute little Girl Scouts, stepping along in place with me as we shouted out the steps.

As I’ve transitioned from focusing on decluttering my home to decluttering my life overall (including such slippery concepts as my time), it makes sense that I tried to fall back on my familiar 2-step system:

Step 1 – Minimize!

Step 2 – Organize!

The problem? This doesn’t work as well with time as it does with a cluttered closet.

I’ve always tried to organize my time. I’ve been a keeper of planners, both digital and paper, my entire life. I can’t go to bed without writing out a to-do list for the next day. I’ve read time management books and consumed copious podcasts on productivity. Heck, I’ve even taught classes on time management!

Why then, do I continue to struggle in this area? Why do I feel like every day is a battle with a never-ending to-do list that, like a zombie army, seems to regenerate each time I kill off one member?

This bothered me so much that I stopped teaching time management classes. It’s no fun to stand in front of a room and tell people how to manage their time when you feel like you’re barely holding it together.

But like many problems, this one unraveled itself in the shower. As I contemplated how many more minutes I could legitimately stand under the hot water before getting my kids up the other morning, I realized…

My old system of Step 1: MINIMIZE, followed by Step 2: ORGANIZE, was missing a key 3rd step: LET GO.

I never included this step when I taught the Girl Scouts because it wasn’t something I struggled with regarding my stuff. I could let go of stuff pretty easily. Old college newspaper articles I wrote? Don’t need ‘em. Too-tight jeans? Into the donation bag. Toys my kids have outgrown? Goodbye.

But when it comes to my time and commitments… ah, there’s the rub! It’s much harder for me to let go of things I want to do. And here’s why…

For most of my life, I’ve defined myself not by what I own, but by what I accomplish.

When I was a kid, I remember adults asking me that familiar question: What do you want to be when you grow up? It seemed like “becoming something” was the most important thing I had to figure out to enter the adult world. And I did.

I went to college and became a teacher. A respectable profession. It allowed me to easily answer the adult version of that childhood question, now asked over cocktails at fundraising events and in the present tense: So… what do you do?

I’ve always pinned my self-worth on doing and thus the more I do, the better I am.

There’s just one slight problem with that…

It’s not true.

My self-worth is not determined by what I do any more than by what I own.

I’ve just had 38 years of practice looking at it that way.

So… how does this relate to those Girl Scouts? I can still see them, stamping their feet and shouting:

Step 1: Minimize!

Step 2: Organize!

I wish I could go back in time and teach them what they really needed to know:

Step 3: LET GO

Because here’s what I’ve learned…

I can minimize my commitments. I can say no, I can say I’m too busy, I can flat-out refuse.

But unless I learn to LET GO of the belief that what I do is equal to who I am, none of that matters.

So my task is not to say no more often. And it’s not to organize my time with color codes and time blocks and pinged reminders.

My task is to realize that who I am is irrelevant to all of that.

Who I am has always been worthy and valuable and important and no amount of to-do list crossing off can touch it. It’s the unshakable, never-changing, underlying part of me.

And the only thing worth crossing off my to-do list each day is to simply remember that.

***

Rose Lounsbury is a minimalism and simplicity coach, speaker, and author of the Amazon bestselling Less: Minimalism for Real. Rose spends her days speaking, writing, coaching her clients and online students to stuff-free freedom. Rose’s advice has been featured in USA Today, and she’s been a guest on Good Day Columbus, NPR, Good Morning Cincinnati, and Living Dayton. You can find her online at RoseLounsbury.com.

Comments

Years ago, as I was plodding along in my dead end job, I expressed my disappointment with the situation, especially the job, to an old family friend. I explained that after having spent years earning a couple of degrees, that I thought that things would have been better, that I would have gotten ahead. This old friend looked thoughtful for a moment and then looked at me and said, “Don’t confuse what you do for a living with who you are”. Wise words that I still remember.

As far as the job, I managed to move up the pay and seniority scale but never in position/rank. After watching several regime changes in the workplace and all of the accompanying drama, I can’t help but think that things might have turned out just fine anyway.

This is such an important lesson to learn. Stopping pinning my self-worth on what I do allowed me to let go of a career that was 8 years in the schooling but was draining my life, and do something that is much lower pay but feeds my soul.

I can totally see myself between your lines, Rose. As a mother of 6, I have come to the conclusion that there are only 2 things that need my attention: the physical and spiritual bread for my family. This is where I want to invest time in. Everything else is less important (for now). Thanks to the restricted life of corona quarantine and thanks to the inspiration of minimalism, I have realized how important it is to declutter my schedule, too….

My favorite answer to, “What do you do?” is “Whatever I feel like doing.” The most honest way to be me is to make choices that reflect my values when it comes to what to do. Yes, my activities change over the years but as long as they reflect who I am inside they are the right choices for me for that time. Right now my choice is to isolate to protect everyone’s health.

Well said! Culturally, many of us have been led to believe that we have to continually earn the right to exist as a human being. The unending stress of living under this utilitarian concept is even more of an exhausting treadmill for the spiritually minded who believe that their salvation is also dependent upon “works.”

Thanks, this is just what I needed. I also haven’t had any difficulties in minimizing my stuff, but I’m a commitment hoarder. I have tried to say no for so many times and I still end up having too much to do so much so that I feel overwhelmed by all the tasks I need to do. I knew the reason is somewhere else than my ability to organise my time as I manage to accomplish a lot with a short time.

It is exactly as Rose says in her article, that I have pinned my self-worth on doing. And that is what I need to change. So thanks for the insightful article.

Ahhhh this is so timely and refreshing. I’ve never had a problem de cluttering and parting with things – but I always felt this stressful pull. It’s because I always feel like I need to be DOING SOMETHING to be justified for living. It’s a hard thing to learn. Baby steps . . .